Obama’s Kinsley-esque Gaffe: ‘You’ve Made Enough Money’

File this one away for 2012, or perhaps simply this fall, as Democrats are preparing to run on their record (such as it is) on the economy. Ed Morrissey, and in the video above, Mark Levin, catches the president saying, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”

Via News Alert and Breitbart TV, consider this Share the Wealth 2010. Barack Obama went off the TelePrompter in his speech to a Quincy, Illinois audience about Wall Street reform. After saying that Democrats don’t begrudge success that’s “fairly earned,” Obama then ad-libs — and reveals more about himself than he probably wanted:

We’re not, we’re not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that’s fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or providing good service. We don’t want people to stop, ah, fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow our economy.

Compare that to his remarks as prepared for delivery:

Now, we’re not doing this to punish these firms or begrudge success that’s fairly earned. We don’t want to stop them from fulfilling their responsibility to help grow our economy.

He should have stuck with the TelePrompter. The President doesn’t get to decide when people have “made enough money.” In fact, as the radio host notes, that’s a statist point of view. Furthermore, the responsibility of an entrepreneur isn’t to “grow our economy,” core or otherwise. It’s to grow his own economy. In a properly regulated capitalist system, the natural tension of self-interests create economic growth through innovation and efficient use of capital and resources.

Put simply, a free people work for themselves, not for the government. Barack Obama seems to have a problem understanding that.

“[Obama] always talked about the New Rochelle train, the trains that took commuters to and from New York City, and he didn’t want to be on one of those trains every day,” said Jerry Kellman, the community organizer who enticed Obama to Chicago from his Manhattan office job. “The image of a life, not a dynamic life, of going through the motions… that was scary to him.”

“We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do,” she tells the women. “Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond.” Faced with that reality, she adds, “many of our bright stars are going into corporate law or hedge-fund management.”

But what exactly is that “certain point?” I think we can safely assume that it’s at least one dollar over $5.5 million, which the president earned last year.

I wonder if he will pass on his advice to the city of San Francisco, where according to the Chronicle, “More than 1 in 3 of San Francisco’s nearly 27,000 city workers earned $100,000 or more last year — a number that has been growing steadily for the past decade.”

EXACTLY the sticking, stinking main point. Anybody that can justify/champion the attitude, as evidenced via this off-the-prompter comment, by this fake president is just as evil as he… and just as blatantly useless as obama to the wellbeing of the USA.

I am quite certain that Mr. Obama would never consider lumping his good friend and supporter Oprah as someone who, at some point, has made too much money. The hypocrisy associated with this man and his administration is absolutely unbelievable, he speaks out of both sides of his lying mouth. Watch out America…and I thought Bush was bad.

“But what exactly is that ‘certain point?’ I think we can safely assume that it’s at least one dollar over $5.5 million, which the president earned last year.”

Well, you’d think so.

But if we were able to delve a little further into what Obama thinks, we would no doubt discover that his cut-offs for how much money is enough money are entirely dependent on who the person is, what his job is, whether or not he works for the government, etc.

For example, Obama, as the greatest of all human beings, should naturally make as much money as he likes. Because he has the wisdom to know how to use it that the rest of us do not.

Similarly, Biden and various Congresscritters should also make more money, commensurate with their natural superiority and importance, than those pigs who are just less equal than others. (Unfortunately, Republican Congresscritters have to get the same amount.)

And so on down the line.

If you scratch Obama, not only will you find that he thinks there is a point at which *a person* has made enough money, he also thinks there is a point at which *each individual person* has made enough money. Which happens to be however much as he personally thinks they should be allowed to make.

We’ve seen that with his treatment of CEO’s.

In his perfect world, all money would be his, and he and his cronies would dole it out as they see fit, and he would call that a good thing. A utopian thing, in fact, with him as the natural and appropriate godhead.

In any case, none of their rules ever apply to them. Kind of like Gore and his new mansion.

Actually, this is an interesting concept. Hopefully all can play. I’d like to go down the list of all US Senators and House members: Speaker Pelosi, you and your husband have made way more money than seems appropriate. And you two, John and Teressa Heinz, . . . . whoa! Barney, Chris, Charley (and who can forget Saint Al?) man, you all seem to have made way, way, more than your salary would allow and certainly more than you deserve.

The president is not actually deciding when people make enough money. He is simply using a populist rhetoric, which most everyone thinks or feels about the rich. Especially those on Wall Street who get bonueses after a bailout.

Do you think everybody in a company should have their salary cut in half if a company receives a bailout?
If not, why do you oppose the handing out of contractually obligated bonuses?
You are aware that most of the people who got bonuses, worked for divisions that did not lose any money.

Twaddle. This is just divide and conquer, the ugly politics of the wedge, used by a narcissistic addictive personality who will say or do anything to remain in power and keep the ruled scared of the rulers. It is, Godwin’s Law be damned, actually Hitlerian.

There really is nothing new under the sun. The attitude expressed here is of a kind with the unease felt and expressed by the nobility of Europe’s past to the striving bourgeois and early masters of markets and finance in Amsterdam, London and Lyon. It really is Versailles on the Potomac.

There is enough pressure in the cooker for the truth to leak out, as happened several times before. Joe the Plumber, the bitter Bible-and-guns clingers, the stupid Cambridge police Dept, 5 days away from fundamentally transforming this country, the energy prices will necessarily skyrocket, and now Income Cap-and-trade at a threshold estimated by the second Messiah!

Ah . . . another “Off the Teleprompter” moment. Aren’t they great? Once again, we get a glimpse (he never reveals it completely) of what he truly believes: capitalism is evil, profits are evil, private companies are evil; government is good, government is compassionate, government helps, & we must take from those earning too much and redistribute it to others.

“At a certain point, you’ve made enough money.”
Says who? BHO? Biden? Oprah? Pelosi-Reid? Tina Fey? I don’t want any of those people telling me (or anyone else) how much I can earn and/or when to stop. Not that I’ll ever have as much as Oprah, but hey, I’m not going to stop trying.

There really is nothing new under the sun. The attitude expressed here is of a kind with the unease felt and expressed by the nobility of Europe’s past to the striving bourgeois and early masters of markets and finance in Amsterdam, London and Lyon.

How true. Late medieval France passed “sumptuary laws” to limit how much the merchant class could spend of their growing wealth.

Huey Long, the closest thing to a Banana Republic strongman this country has seen to date, believed that the most wealth someone should strive for is to be a “ten-millionaire,” or around $200 million in today’s dollars. Huey did not end well, by the way.

How nice of the President to decide how much money someone is entitled to make. Bet his amount comes in right around the amount he has earned for his books and his wife earned in her legal career. As bad as this man has been as President, he just got worse.Not only does this man need a lesson in economic systems that work and how they work, but someone aught to tell him that the fruits of labor belong to the wroker toherwise it is called slavery. I believe that has been outlawed by the 13th amendment. You would think having gone to Columbia and Harvard someone might have taught him something about Constitutional law. Oh,yeah, he was the Consitutional law teacher. If I was one of his students I would go for a refresher course.

There’s nothing new here. Anyone who doesn’t know who Obama is and what he believes in by now, never will. He’s a Marxist through and through. He is also a con man and was able to con enough Americans to put him in the WH. What a disaster this man is. I really have my doubts that this nation will survive 4 years of this man. Look at the damage he has already done. Actually, I believe he has done many things that are really unconstitutional, but until someone with money and clout takes him to task, he will continue to get away with sending this country down the slippery slope to Socialism and even worse. We must get out to vote in 2010 and 2012; this may be our only chance to get rid of Obama and the Progressive vermin in Congress.

The story used to go that in China, the ruling party would tell the people (after the disaster of the Cultural Revolution) that “To grow rich is glorious”. Here, the head of state tells people that there’s a point at which they’ve made too much money.

If those were the only two facts you knew about the US and China, who would you guess owes whom a few hundred billion bucks?

I’ve been following politics for over three decades and I still can’t figure out exactly how the ideal Leftist society is any different in complexity from the average ant colony. It’s amazing that people would give up that much of their natural individuality for some abstraction like “the common good”. I also can’t really figure out how it would be any different being dead from being a Leftist. Both seem like the same state of being to me.

To understand the appeal of socialism (and all mass movements) look in your used book store for a copy of Eric Hoffer’s “The True Believer”. Won’t cost more than three dollars and is worth vastly more than that in educational benefit.

Take this fraud off his teleprompter and you hear what he really believes in. He is so clueless without that teleprompter. Why else would they “stage” his so-called Town Halls? People are chosen to ask questions beforehand, questions are chosen and Obama then has the right answers. They certainly can’t leave it to him to extemporaneously answer questions without putting his foot in it. Brillian orator…..I think not!!!!

Isnt it great to have a President who thinks judgements on life and death issues, like abortion and the question “when does life begin” are above his “pay grade”, but instead has sophisticated opinions about things like the amount of money his fellow citizens earn?

So sophisticated, so smart and such an admirable instinct when it comes to questions of proportionality!

Obama is right! They’ve made enough money! It’s time to give back to the community! The dawn of Socialism has come, Capitalism is over. Time for fairness. Make people contribute 90% of their wealth to a pool we all share from. Start with the Obama’s millions, then Pelosi, Streisand, Arianna Huffington, Spielberg, Tom and Giselle, Al Gore, the Clintons, Dianne Feinstein, Jesse Jackson, all Hollywood celebrities and sports stars, all DC Senators and Congressmen, all union leaders and CEO’s – Fair is Fair! Let’s put our money where our mouth is!

So Sorry!, you have just opened a can of worms. What is the definition of “employer”? Nance employs a fairly large number of “legal” immigrants in her wine business. I would hazard that almost all wealthy people “employ” at least one person. Yep, the devil is in the details. Which is why society shouldn’t have more than the ten commandments and the Constitution as the law of the land. All questions when put up to those two documents and honestly compared will yield the correct answer. Every time.

But as Franklin said, This Constitution only works for a people of good moral character with honor and virtue. It won’t work for any other kind of person.

I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or providing good service.

This seems to indicated that Obama is the first anti-American president.

How does Obama explain community organizers who provide neither a good product or service but seek to extort private enterprise or the government.

Of course Obama was only referring to who he believes has earned their money unfairly, that is, Wall Street fat cats, not Hollywood movie stars, overpaid sports figures, or popular singers or entertainers. This is what is so annoying about Barack Obama, his obvious partisanship and personal pique when he should be acting, at least, Presidential. When he should try to give the impression, at least, that he is the President of all Americans, even those Americans who oppose and dislike him and even those Americans he opposes and dislikes.
This is what will destroy Obama’s Presidency and what will be his legacy, an immature thin skinned child who treated his Presidency as if it were a personal gift to him to do what he pleased with it.

RockThisTown, you are right on the money. At least when Bush went off the teleprompter, he simply spoke (mostly) incoherently. Every time Obama goes off the teleprompter, he lets fly a Freudian slip that makes his allies groan and take Rolaids.

I have long advocated a maximum wage of equal to twice minimum wage for Hollywood: actors, directors, writers, and other non-technical occupations. I’m delirious to see Obama agrees with me on the essential parasitism of “entertainers.” Let him make of them his first example!

Obama’s wife said:You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse.

You know, be our servants and do the work we as parents relegate to the teachers, community workers and social workers, the work we don’t want to do because of the lots of stress and no possibility of getting to where we’re at that certain point you’ve made enough money.
Relegate responsibility and fore go that sense of accomplishment along with the comforts of success in the interests of the community.

So Obama gets to send his kids to private school, denies vouchers for poor kids in D.C. to go to private school, signs a book deal to make miilions just before he is sworn in as President and then lectures hard working Americans that they better not make too much money? He doesn’t mind being rich, he just doesn’t think anybody except the hard Left, academic elite should be rich.

We fought the Cold War because Americans knew how foolish and toxic the notion of marxism was. Now, we have made an arrogant,Marxist our President and are only now waking up to how dangerous and foolish that is.

I do have one suggestion: I believe Karl Marx created the term capitlism and for this reason alone it is objectionable. But it also does not desribe in any way the beauty of what Adam Smith and others described as our free market system. Just as we choose the term pro-life instead of pro-choice, I would suggest we use the best words to describe the beauty of our system where millions choose instaed of the One.

I’m curious to know if President Yahoo intends to go to the MLB players and tell them that they are making too much money. Even mediocre players are knocking down $2 or $3 mil a year, and the really good players routinely earn $10 mil or more each year. So does his idiotic statement apply to them, or do they get a pass because they happen to be unionized?

And, by extension, do the elite Hollywood types really deserve to get $20 mil per film? Since all these leftist bleeding hearts are in bed together, let’s see how fast the actors/actresses line up to have their salaries slashed because President Zero said it should be that way.

Damnedbama is a communist. Always has been. Always will be. Atheist-moslem- same thing, whether one denies the existence of God, or pretends to worship the babylonian “moon god”; a ficticious entity. This is symbolized by their crescent moon, combined with a scimitar, their instrument of conversion… or slavery…or death. Actually, commies, moslems, atheists, all work well together because all seek to achieve the same satanic objectives; the enslavement and destruction of mankind.

He’s never stated as much about defending America as he has about defending poor maligned islam.
Scrubbed the word ‘islam’ from all WH reports of the 9/11 commission. Bows to saudi king when protocol doesn’t call for it.

Takes government control of GM, Banks, all student loans, what you eat (or extra taxes please), student loans, wants to limit free speech and the intnet, what you watch on tv – no FOX, radio – only libs need apply, what your kids are taught, what you can or cannot say to them about your religious beliefs or anyone else’s for that matter, their schools will take care of that for you…what next?

Then there’s UNiversal health care designed to kill off of those terroristic seniors in about 4 to 5 years as they linger on long waiting lists only to die untreated.

Sad that the first black president of the USA turned out to be such a turd. Calls the SWAT team on a small group of mainly elderly people for crowd control, but can’t defend the borders and decides to give old and new enemies the leg up on America’s ability to defend itself though – no fighting back rules.

Appoints nothing but the worse possible losers as his czars. Plans? More taxes -lots to do, busy busy busy, next up, cap ‘n trade, eco plans to save the earth and etc. IF they’re so sharp how can they be so stupid about the AGW hoax? Of course they’re not stupid – just crafty and greedy – progressive they call it now, one big happy wealth redistribution – socialist plan.

Who appoints “czars” anymore, what is he planning next, to appoint himself king? LSM would just be it’s usual orgasmic self and proclaim long live the king.

Best be paying close attention to bills being passed in the midnight hours between now and November.

This quote obviously drives you guys wild, but for the average American, hearing him say this to Goldman and its fellow travelers, is not going to be a smoking gun, but will evoke more of a vague nod of the head. Sure gets Sean Hannity excited though. (And that’s pretty hard to do, right?)

The underlying issue is more all the different economic schemes that have been developed to squeeze more blood out of a stone, without actually producing anything. Altogether they magnify our booms and magnify our busts. Just putting back in place the regulations which were repealed over the last twenty years is a start, ad getting a grip on Fannie and Freddie. Alas it will squelch some of our booms and slow down recovery, but it it needs to be done.

Part of the problem this time around was that there was so much money out there, looking for ways to increase itself, that they threw the regulations away and created many new witches brews. It was a kind of New Age financing and many people drank deep.
It’s not particularly Obama’s fault, other than the fact that he like many people did not see it coming, and like most Libs, he drank the Fannie and Freddie cocktail.

If Beck saw it coming, it was most likely that he simply needed the drama of a Depression coming (if he can’t get a Second Coming.) Was he advising people in any practical way? Was he telling people to not over-mortgage and go to T-Bills?

I am confused. The average federal government employee earns over $70,000/year while the average worker in the private “free market” sector makes an average of $40,000/year? Is this what the president was referring to as making too much?

#45 Speedypete: Apparently so. In a capitalistic society, the private sector should ALWAYS pay more than the public sector; the trade-off is job security/stability. Workers in the private sector live with the risk of their business closing or being laid off.